Written by Nancy Armour at USAToday
Simone Biles doesn’t want to get drawn into the debate of where she ranks in history.
She doesn’t need to.
The gold medal hanging around her neck says it all. The scoreboard added an exclamation point.
Biles erased whatever lingering doubts there were about whether she’s the greatest gymnast of all time Thursday, winning the Olympic all-around title in a rout. She finished 2.1 points ahead of Final Five teammate Aly Raisman, by far her largest margin of victory in her three-year – and counting — win streak.
“I would say yes,” Martha Karolyi said when asked if Biles was the greatest ever. “For me, the most special was my first, from Nadia, and the last, from Simone. Those really stand out for me.
“I would put Simone now on top,” she added.
This was not a cliff-hanger, Biles having established her dominance long ago. She hasn’t lost an all-around competition since the spring of 2013, claiming three world titles and four U.S. crowns in the process.
Biles packs so much difficulty into her routines that she starts with a point or two cushion. Other gymnasts have to hope she falls or is sloppy. Which she almost never does and rarely is.
Even Raisman acknowledged she was fighting for second place – or first in the “non-Simone division,” as her fellow Americans have taken to describing it.
Still, those expectations are as tall as they are weighty, especially for a 19-year-old who stands just 4-foot-8.
When the standings after the second rotation flashed and Biles had slipped behind Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, the first time she had trailed in a competition – any competition – in almost three years, it would have been easy to wonder if a small crack was beginning to show.
In a word, no.
Not even close.
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